51 pages • 1-hour read
Three Women
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Key Figures
Lisa Taddeo
Taddeo is a journalist and nonfiction writer, with work in publications such as New York Magazine, Esquire, Elle, and Glamour. Her nonfiction has been included in the anthologies Best American Sports Writing and Best American Political Writing. Taddeo was inspired to Three Women by the admissions of her dying mother which led her to become interested in the relatively secretive world of female desire. Taddeo undertook eight years of immersive reporting with her three subjects and their communities to capture the complexity of their experiences.
Lina
Lina is a 32-year-old woman who lives in a small town in Indiana. She has two children with her husband Ed, seven-year-old Della and two-year-old Danny. Lina feels stifled, restless, and unloved by Ed, and they separate. Concurrently, she resumes a sexual relationship with her high school crush, Aidan. Through Aidan and Lina’s relationship, Taddeo explores the overwhelming force of female desire. For Lina, Aidan is “an exalted being in the realm of lovemaking,” and their relationship pushes Lina towards a separation from Ed (177). Through Lina’s unsupportive female community, Taddeo explores the way that female desire is viewed as subversive and bizarre.
Taddeo also exposes and explores how in many heterosexual relationships men’s needs are given precedence. Lina is not able to drive the pace of the sexual relationship. She sends Aidan “hot pic[s]” on request, she reorganizes her schedule at a moment’s notice, and she rents hotel rooms near Aidan “just in case” (263-64). Meanwhile, Aidan will often not even reply to Lina’s messages. Lina’s overwhelming desire for Aidan causes her to suppress her own needs. Aidan asks about the medication in Lina’s handbag when they have a sexual encounter at a gas station; Lina does not admit to Aidan that she takes clonazepam because their relationship gives her anxiety (145). This illustrates the toll that her unrequited infatuation has on her wellbeing, yet Taddeo suggests that an adherence to societal norms, as well as authentic sexual desire, pushes Lina to continue her affair with Aidan despite his cruelty.
Maggie
Maggie is a 23-year-old woman living in Fargo, North Dakota. Maggie’s story primarily focuses on an alleged affair which took place between Maggie and her teacher, Aaron Knodel, when Maggie was a 17-year-old high school student. In Maggie’s story, Taddeo examines the events of the illicit relationship between Maggie and Knodel, and the devastating aftermath experienced by Maggie, including the court case where Knodel is found innocent.
Taddeo became interested in Maggie because, in Taddeo’s opinion, Maggie’s “sexuality and sexual experience were being denied in a horrific way” (5). For Taddeo, Knodel’s innocent verdict poses an age-old question: “when and why and by whom women’s stories are believed—and why and why and by whom they are not” (5). Taddeo concludes that when it is a woman’s word against a man, there is a societal predisposition to trust men. Rich, white, and well-respected men are assumed to be morally sound. “Aaron Knodel was supported implicitly,” she writes, whereas Maggie was denounced as a liar (303). Maggie was characterized as troubled because she had a sexual history, her family was poor, and she was young. It is exactly this combination of factors, Taddeo suggests, that allowed Knodel to exploit Maggie without consequence. Through Maggie’s story, Taddeo highlights and condemns patriarchal structures which exist in society and in judicial systems, as these structures allow women to be exploited, traumatized, and then silenced.
Sloane
Sloane is a 42-year-old woman who lives in Newport, Rhode Island. She owns a successful restaurant with her husband, Richard. She is “beautiful, well-bred” and “thin,” and comes from a well-to-do New York family (37). Through Sloane, Taddeo explores the way that even beautiful, rich, and powerful women tend to suppress their own desires and preferences to please men. Sloane sleeps with other men and women at the behest of Richard. However, she sometimes finds these encounters distressing, even devastating, especially when she must watch Richard have sex with other women. Sloane is perceived as powerful by others, but she feels that this is a façade.
Taddeo also investigates the way that female sexuality is viewed as subversive and problematic. Sloane’s sexuality is judged and condemned, particularly by other women. She is assumed to be the calculating force behind her and Richard’s sexual encounters, and Taddeo draws attention to the sexism in this assumption
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